You know that moment I mentioned in my last post, the one where the proverbial light bulb goes on in your head and your eyes widen? Your mouth opens and out comes "ooohhh". You get it. The frustration suddenly disappears and is forgotten. Well, I made it. I was waiting for water to boil and passing the time with the drop spindle. I was still unhappy with my uneven drafting and suddenly---instead of trying to pull down on the roving with my hand closer to the spindle, I pulled back with the hand holding the roving. Can I have a resounding "DUH" here? All the descriptions I've read specifically said, "if you're right handed, draft with your left hand." Right there in black and white. And yet I continued to dismiss this part of the training.
As a result of this epiphany, my spinning is more consistent. In fact, I'm getting it too thin and will end up plying 3 singles to get a worsted weight. That's not a bad thing. I still need to perfect my joins, though now I'm not removing and working on a section of roving, I'm working straight from the ball. Unless I don't get enough twist and the fiber separates, I am not constantly joining. Such a small adjustment changed the whole dynamic. Next item to work on? Spinning the same size balls of singles so when I ply them together I come out with a 4 oz. hank of yarn. I'm sure someone out there has already written that out but I'll ignore it and think myself quite the genius for figuring it out on my own. I figure it this way, if I buy 4 oz. of roving, divide it in half, spin each half, ply together, I should have a 4 oz. hank. Nothing evaporates in the process or gains weight. Should work. My other thought is: weigh my spindle. Spin until I reach the weight of my spindle plus 2 oz. Then I don't have to split the roving. I'll let you know how that works out.
"Yeah, yeah, you're a genius, just let me in the house and give me a treat."
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